Page 17 of Love Me Fearless

“Don’t do this, Ava,” I call out, snatching my briefs from where they ended up last night and tugging them on so I can chase after her. “We can work this out.”

Ava stifles a tight cry. Below me, she’s pulled on a red sundress that shows off her strong legs. The same legs that were wrapped around my face last night as I pushed her over the edge.

“I know how this story ends, Hutch.”

I jump down the final rung just as she’s reaching for the door. “Then enlighten me, Greely. How does it end?”

She wheels around. “With you discarding me just like all the others.”

I hurry to the door and press it shut. “What if there’s another ending? Have you thought of that?”

For an instant, I feel like finally I’m getting through to her. She closes her eyes and releases a soft sigh, but then a tear breaks free and tumbles down her cheek. “You’ll only break my heart.”

So she’s going to break mine instead?

Ava cups the side of my face, her gentle touch like sandpaper onmy skin because I know what she’s going to do and I don’t know how to stop her.

Another tear trickles down her flushed cheek. “I need to go.”

A sudden pain in my chest spreads to my shoulders and up my spine, pinching like a hot vice. It’s too much. Too…big. Inside myself, I close it all down. The laughter we shared. The joy. What felt like hope and a fragile love that’s grown there, a love only for her.

I shove it all down and lock it away as I step back from the door and let her walk through it.

The gust of cold air that hits me like a wrecking ball makes this all too real.

She’s leaving.

Feeling numb, I blink at the empty cabin. How could this be happening?

Am I really just going to stand here and let it?

I tug on a pair of shorts and race barefoot up the path, my tense breaths cutting the silence. I pass the empty wedding arch in the meadow, and the tent where we toasted our best friends, and the place we danced—each moment bringing us closer to the only way the night could have ended.

I got my wish, but this isn’t at all where I thought we’d end up.

At the edge of the parking lot, I catch a flash of Ava’s red dress. “Ava!” I call out.

“Oh God, he’s coming,” she says, like she’s talking to someone. “He looks even better in the morning. Shit. I gotta go.”

My brain tries to make sense of this as a car door slams and the kick of gravel alerts me to a departing vehicle.

I get there just as a black Uber with tinted windows pulls away.

Chapter Five

Finn River, Idaho

I finishmy check-up with the two-year-old twins, then pause in my office to wolf down a banana and a bran muffin while I review the chart of the teenaged patient with stomach pains who’s waiting for me in room two.

Outside, it’s still snowing, the big, soft flakes drifting down. With rain in the forecast for tomorrow, it won’t stick. Typical spring. I gulp down water as I read, skimming the chart for any past history I should be aware of like allergies or medication issues.

My nurse, Vivian, leans into my office. “They’re ready for you.”

“Great, thank you,” I pick up my tablet.

“Are you going to want a blood draw?” she asks.

“You know me well,” I say with a smile.

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